A Devizes chef is part of a team of eight top flight chefs from across the South West to create a new summer menu for Trowbridge-based Wiltshire Farm Foods.

As restaurants and pubs have had to temporarily close, Wiltshire Farm Foods decided to support chefs affected by the pandemic by updating its range with the Summer Kitchen collaboration.

Peter Vaughan, who is the executive chef and director at Vaughan’s Kitchen in Devizes, prepared two dishes for the menu, a slow cooked beef dish with onions and Dorset ale and a gooey chocolate and glacé cherry brownie with a vanilla cream sauce.

He said it was an interesting experience to be part of the Summer Kitchen collaboration, a project which took just 49 days to complete from conception, to recruiting chefs, development and manufacturing.

“You were given a brief and it was very important to not go off what I call the traditional track, because a lot of people like their traditional food.

“Of course, I had a hundred and one ideas – like anybody,” he laughed.

“But that one struck a chord with every chef who was working on their dishes and everybody thought the same.

“It’s the sort of dish your grandparents and your parents would enjoy – it tastes nutritious, it tastes light, it tastes like a treat.”

Peter was contacted by Wiltshire Farm Foods, which makes frozen meals which are delivered to the doorstep to diners, to be a part of the project.

He worked alongside Jethro Lawrence, head chef at Woolley Grange Hotel; Rob Allcock, chef patron at The Long Arms, South Wraxall; Richard Knighting, executive chef at Corkage, Bath; Elliott Lidstone, head chef and owner at BOX-E, Bristol; Henry Scott, head chef at Henry’s, Bath; Josh Dobson, Sous Chef at Bunch of Grapes, Bradford on Avon and Simi Rezai-Ghassemi, cookery teacher and owner of Simi’s Kitchen in Bath.

Peter also said that he is working on vegetarian dishes ideas due to people asking and ‘people are starting to see meat as a treat rather than an everyday commodity’.

He said: “My grandparents were Wiltshire Farm Foods customers so I created my dish with them in mind.

“This project has been a superb culinary challenge – I have a real admiration for Phil Rimmer and the team. They’ve been wonderful to work with.”

COO of Wiltshire Farm Foods, Ian Stone added: “The South West attracts some of the best chefs in the country and we were keen to collaborate with those whose businesses had temporarily been affected by the pandemic to bring a fresh and exciting new summer menu for our customers.”